


let's make the most of the night (like we're gonna die young)

by FangirlKats



Series: of words, birds, and capitalism. [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Making Up, Minor Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Minor Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Post-Break Up, Prom, just ask if youre curious, the harlishcrockberts are complicated, very minor though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27661363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangirlKats/pseuds/FangirlKats
Summary: While he couldn’t deny he was sad about it, the most prominent feeling that came up whenever he analyzed his emotions was... embarrassment. Jake could have at least had the decency to not break up with him in front of half the school a week before prom. But, as half his friend group had told him over the following week, it was no use dwelling on the past, and he shouldn’t even be thinking Jake’s name anyway, since Roxy had said ‘it would slow the healing process’, whatever that meant.
Relationships: Dave Strider & Dirk Strider, Jake English/Dirk Strider, Rose Lalonde & Dirk Strider, Rose Lalonde & Roxy Lalonde & Dave Strider & Dirk Strider, Roxy Lalonde & Dirk Strider
Series: of words, birds, and capitalism. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022680
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	let's make the most of the night (like we're gonna die young)

**Author's Note:**

> Looking for some trouble tonight (yeah)  
> Take my hand, I'll show you the wild side  
> Like it's the last night of our lives (uh huh)  
> We'll keep dancing till we die.

If you had the ability to time travel (which was physically impossible, _Dave_ ), and you decided to waste it on visiting Dirk Strider from 6 months prior and asking what his prom night would look like, he would have probably said something very close to what he was currently experiencing. Sure, there’d be less ice cream and Roxy probably wouldn’t have banned alcohol so he couldn’t ‘make a bad decision to try and drown his sorrows away’. 

He’d probably be quite surprised by the amount of tears. And the fact that he didn’t even tease Dave for being a wreck when his date came over to pick him up. He’d deny the mere possibility of Roxy missing the opportunity to take a million pictures of the twins before they left. 

But the rest? The rest he would have predicted almost perfectly.

Dirk was currently sat on one of Roxy’s bright pink beanbags, wrapped in a blanket burrito which he had originally argued against but had eventually agreed on after Roxy very vehemently told him it was either that or being smothered by her all night. He wasn’t crying, really. He hadn’t really cried at all since what their group had decided to call ‘The Incident’. It was weird, too, because several of his friends _had_ cried and they weren’t even the ones who got dumped.

While he couldn’t deny he was sad about it, the most prominent feeling that came up whenever he analyzed his emotions was... embarrassment. Jake could have at least had the decency to _not_ break up with him in front of half the school a week before prom. But, as half his friend group had told him over the following week, it was no use dwelling on the past, and he shouldn’t even be thinking Jake’s name anyway, since Roxy had said ‘it would slow the healing process’, whatever that meant. It would have probably been more effective if Roxy hadn’t still been talking to Jake in secret and then acting as if she wasn’t.

The truth was Dirk was… feeling much more that he was willing to process or talk about. And he didn’t like that. In fact, he despised it. He felt unsure and shaky, like a newborn deer trying to walk for the first time. He had used that same comparison to refer to everything Dave had ever done since he’d been born and he had never been impressed, so he could only imagine how it would go over if he confided in him now. 

He wasn’t particularly inclined to talk about his feelings with Dave, anyway, since talking about anything with Dave usually meant talking to Karkat, and it was bad enough that no one in his family ever watched any movies other than romcoms now, he didn’t also need someone breathing down his neck with charts and ‘logical thinking, idiot’. Love was dead, Karkat. No amount of cheesy one liners could revive this one.

Talking to Rose was also impossible since they were both equally stubborn and unwilling to open up. Not to mention she would probably use anything he said against him whenever he tried to embarrass her next and he couldn’t ever lose teasing privileges or his life would lose all meaning.

So, Roxy it was. She would have probably been his first choice regardless, being his sister, best friend and closest confidant. But her being friends with Jake complicated things, no matter what she had to say in the matter. Not to mention Jane, who he had been awkward around all week even though she hadn’t been anything but supportive. In fact, everyone had been really supportive, which wasn’t surprising since most of them were used to Jake’s specific brand of optimistic stupidity and the chaos it brought with it but he had to admit he didn’t expect Jade to approach him one day and tell him she’d kick her brother’s ass for him if he asked.

He didn’t ask.

He didn’t want to hurt Jake, no matter how much he had hurt him. He wasn’t fully convinced it hadn’t been his fault, anyway.

“I can actually hear you blaming yourself from here, Dirky”, said Roxy from where she was leaning against her room’s door, holding an obscene amount of snacks in her bare arms. “Do I have to call the squad over to knock some sense into you?”

“They’re at prom”, responded Dirk, rolling his eyes and disentangling himself from the blankets. “They wouldn’t leave just for that.” 

Roxy looked at him with a mix of exasperated fondness and something that resembled the expression people had when a puppy died in a movie. Dirk always felt raw and open with Roxy, but this expression made him feel like he was naked in front of an audience of thousands. He didn’t know if he liked it.

“Your obstinate belief that people don’t care about you is going to kill you one of these days, babe.” She looked like she might cry for a moment before shaking her head and joining Dirk on the floor. “And anyway, I have a steady stream of messages from Karkat that say otherwise. I didn’t have time to read all of it but I do remember reading the phrase ‘why couldn’t I have had my heart broken so I could stay home?’. I’m pretty sure he’d come running if I said anything.”

“That seems like a surprising lack of expletives coming from him.”

“Yeah, well, I paraphrased,” Roxy said, handing Dirk an orange soda and taking one for herself. “No one swears like him, anyway.”

“Cheers to that.” It felt a little silly to clink their soda cans as if they were glasses full of expensive wine, but it was probably not the weirdest thing that would happen that night, so Dirk thought it was fine. “When did we adopt another kid, Rox?”

“Remember when Dave was in 5th grade and he came home screaming because some kid had punched him and broken his shades and declared that he would hate him for the rest of his life, only to show up a week later holding his hand?”

He did remember. He was only a couple of years older than Dave, but by virtue of their parents being voted ‘most likely to become child abusers’, he'd been taking care of both him and Rose since they were very little. Roxy helped a lot, but she'd had a rough couple of years due to the aforementioned DNA donors so it'd mostly been him. Him staying up late when they got sick (Roxy included). Him making sure they were eating and brushing their teeth. Him helping Dave with homework. Him taking Rose to buy pads when she got her period. 

They were only a couple of years younger, but his memories always made them seem so small compared to him. So, he remembered. Like he remembered every memorable thing they had ever done. 

He remembered Dave showing up angrier than he'd ever seen him. Red in the face, yelling up a storm and sporting a truly impressive black eye to have been done by a 10 year old. He remembered being terrified that their father was somehow back from the grave, but he stopped himself from panicking by realizing that even if he could come back, Dave would be scared of him, not angry.

What followed was one of the most wholesome chains of events of Dirk's short life. An asshole with no taste or personality, in Dave's words, had started yelling at him out of nowhere, and when Dave got understandably, again, Dave's words, pissy at him, the dude had punched him in the face and broken his shades. For a 10 year old, that was the biggest offence ever, so he announced that he hated him and would always hate him and Dirk resigned himself to the years long grudge that would surely follow and would force him to act as if he hated a kid he didn't even know.

However, no sooner had he accepted this, Dave was coming home stringing along a boy with brown skin and the most impressive case of bedhead he had ever seen. He then very seriously declared that that was Karkat Vantas, who had broken his shades the week before, but that didn't matter anymore, because they were best friends.

They left the room before Dirk could get a word in, and he'd been laughing at that exchange ever since, much to Dave and Karkat's chagrin.

"How could I forget?" Dirk asked, realizing he still hadn't answered Roxy's question. "That was the day the peace and quiet died in this house."

"Let's be real, Dirky. There's never been any peace and quiet here."

"Yeah."

"And honestly, we could have our hands full of crying children soon, so we should appreciate the silence while we still have it."

It took Dirk a moment to understand what Roxy meant, but when he did, he groaned.

"Why did you have to remind me?" 

"Listen, this is most definitely going to end in disaster and we need to be ready to deal with it." She leaned her head on his shoulder and they sat quietly for a while, both trying to figure out how to fix what would probably be the worst blow on their social groups since the Jane and Jake debacle.

"Who on Earth devised this plan, again?"

"The twins. From what I understand they didn't even… talk about it? I don't think they know the other has the same plan, so they're also angry at each other."

"Jesus Christ."

"I know. Bringing each other's crushes to prom to make their own crushes jealous… I'm surprised Karkat wasn't the one to come up with it. It certainly sounds like a romcom."

"Karkat has sense though."

"True that."

Dirk had gotten extremely sick of hearing about Karkat's many attributes over the years since the moment Dave started puberty and realized that maybe the hand holding was a thing that he wanted to do all the time. And Rose's internet friend Kanaya moving to their town during sophomore year sounded like fate had played its nasty tricks on both of them very obviously and not at all glamorously. So when prom came around, their entire friend group had waited with bated breath for them to get their heads out of their asses, finally.

And then this had happened. 

Which made sense, because Dave and Rose were as self aware as they were blind to anyone else's intentions and could apparently not see what was obvious to absolutely everyone else. It was more surprising than Karkat and Kanaya went ahead with that ridiculous plan in the first place, since Dirk knew intimately (from many, many hours spent listening to their troubles) that both of them were aware of Dave and Rose's feelings for each of them, and reciprocated. Dirk supposed there was only so much bullshit you could throw at someone before they got desperate.

Still, this was ridiculous. It's true that as the twins' guardian he wanted them to be happy, and he had no doubt that with Karkat and Kanaya, they would be. But on the other hand, more romantic drama was the exact opposite of what their social circle needed right now.

He wondered for a moment if that was selfish of him, but then decided that as part of the current romantic drama, he had the right to an opinion on the matter.

He was getting _really_ sick of high school.

"Dirky?" Roxy had been quiet so long he had thought she had fallen asleep, her head still resting on his shoulder as they both stared at nothing.

“Yeah?”

“I’m really proud of you.”

He would never admit it in a thousand years, but that statement shocked him so much that he jumped away, making Roxy tumble to the floor and knocking over his soda in the process. Roxy immediately started laughing as he blushed and scrambled for something to say.

“I… I don’t think I’ve done anything worthy of such praise… Unless you count rocking these shades and having rugged good looks, in which case: thank you, I know.”

Both Roxy and Dave had inherited a certain smile from who he assumed was their mother, although he had never seen her smile, so he could neither confirm nor deny it. It was a shy, small thing and it was charming as hell and incredibly disarming to Dirk in particular. So when Roxy started smiling up at him, he was overcome with such a wave of fondness that it was all he could do not to hug her right there, aloof image be damned.

“I meant Rose and Dave. We both know our birth givers suck more than a prostitute with good clientele and I was… not exactly the most helpful person for… a while.”

“Hey, Rox, no…”

“Please, let me say this?” She looked at him with the worst puppy dog eyes he’d ever seen, but there wasn’t much he could deny her when all was said and done, so he shut his mouth and motioned for her to keep talking. “You… Whatever the circumstances were, the truth is you were taking care of four children. The twins, sure, but also me and mom. And you were a kid, too, you know? But you still did it, because no one else was going to.”

Most of the time, he knew and told everyone else that they were responsible for their choices. Roxy decided to fix her problems on her own, and Dave and Rose decided to seek therapy all by themselves, and no matter how many hours Dirk had dedicated to helping them, if they hadn’t wanted to change, they wouldn’t have. But they did. And that was all them.

Sometimes, though, when he felt particularly mushy, Dirk let himself be proud of the people Dave, Rose, and Roxy had become. And he liked thinking that he had had a hand in that.Still, it was one thing to think that to himself at night, and another thing to be told by someone whose opinion he respected more than anyone in the world.

“Rox, I’m… Listen, I just did what I had to. I didn’t do anything that impressive.”

“You did, though! You basically raised all of us!” She got up from the floor and started pacing while she counted with her fingers. “You cooked, you cleaned, you did laundry. You made sure we were all happy and healthy and you worried so much over us that you barely even slept!”

Dirk found that the worst kinds of arguments were the ones where one couldn’t argue with the other person at all. He _had_ done all those things, after all. 

“You know where you should be, Dirk Strider? Finishing your second year of college, if not graduating! You’re a genius, you probably could have skipped a couple of grades.” She was starting to get very heated while arguing like she always did and he could tell she’d have to wait for air sometime soon. He’d usually interrupt her but he was looking forward to seeing how far she could go. “But instead, you’re here, graduating at the same time as your younger siblings because you were so busy raising all of us they had to hold you back two years.

Getting held back was something that didn’t fill him with shame, regardless of the many jaunts he got over it during his formative years. There was a time he didn’t even know if he’d finish school, even. It was true that Dirk liked school much more than any of his siblings did, but it was also true that their happiness came first for him, always. He probably would have never finished school if it wasn’t because they had all ganged up on him to force him to focus on it.

“Okay, okay… You’ve made your point.” She snorted.

“That wasn’t my point, baby bro. Those were just the facts.”

“I’m older than you, you can’t call me baby bro.”

“Well, only one of us has graduated high school, and it sure ain’t the man in shades.”

“That was a low blow and you know it.”

“Whatever, my point…,” Roxy argued, sitting next to him once more. “...is that you get to stop worrying now, Dirky.”

_Wait, what?_

“What?” 

He wasn’t sure what his expression looked like, but considering Roxy’s smirk upon seeing it, he was sure he’d be incredibly embarrassed, were these different circumstances.

“You’ve been the adult this long, it’s okay to be a little selfish for once.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Listen, I know that you never let yourself open up with Jake.” Roxy held his hand in both of hers as she masterfully ignored his indignant yelp. “And I don’t care if that was the reason he broke up with you or not, but you can’t tell me it’s not true because I know you.”

He sometimes hated the fact that Roxy knew him more than he knew himself. The mortifying ordeal of being known was really kicking his ass. At least he had a good few years of fooling Dave into thinking he was cool still.

“And?” he said, trying his best not to sound like a petulant child (and failing miserably, if Roxy’s expression was any indication).

“And… I’m saying, for future reference, whether it’s with Jake or with someone else… It’s okay to have your own life, Dirk. You can let go now.”

Dirk wasn’t the type of person to believe that hearts could be ‘broken’. In fact, he had been dumped by who he had (secretly) believed to be the love of his life only a week prior, and there he was, whole and with a functioning heart. He could have sworn, though, that he heard the crack of his heart as Roxy said the words.

“I could never let go of you guys.” 

He didn’t think Roxy fully understood what he meant. He could see it in her face, in the way she scrambled for some way to respond that didn’t make the situation worse. She couldn’t understand it because she wasn’t like him. She was full, and vibrant, and beautiful all on her own. He was a collection of parts, each within a different person, never complete, even when they were all together. Letting go of them would be like letting go of the breaths he took, the blood flowing through his veins, every part of himself. He could never do that.

“I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just…,”she said, letting go of his hands to gesture wildly as she spoke. “The twins are graduating and going off to college, and knowing them they’ll probably make it a competition to see who gets married first.” They both laughed at that, secretly aware that that scenario would most definitely come to pass. “I’m working my way up the hacker biz and, already, I’m making more money than mom ever did. We’re all finding our own way and... It’s okay for you to do the same. You don’t have to protect us anymore.”

He’d have to be heartless not to feel a little emotional about that speech, so it was hardly his fault when he hugged her close against him for a long moment.

“Damn, Rox, you’re making me feel so old.”

“That’s because you _are_ old.”

Her exaggerated wink probably wouldn’t have come across as offensive as it did if it weren’t because Dirk could tell she was just doing it to get a rise out of him. “How can I be both old and a baby?”

“Shush, bro, don’t question it,” she answered, pressing her index finger against his lips with enough force that she ended falling on Dirk’s lap.

“You are so incredibly full of shit.”

“Yeah, well, you raised me, so what does that say about you?"

“I’ll have you know-”

Just as he was about to launch on a long and useless rant, his phone started ringing. Both teens winced as Jake’s frankly terrible rendition of My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion filled the room. _I should probably change that_ , Dirk thought, feeling the weight of his bad choices weighing down on him the same way they probably were weighing on poor Celine as her song was destroyed by an entirely too confident voice.

He took out his phone and was greeted by a selfie of both him and Dave, smiling like idiots at the camera. He couldn’t help but smile a little every time he saw it.

“It’s Dave. Think this whole thing’s blown up in his face yet?  
  
“More like Karkat’s blown up in his face.”

He had to stop himself from outright cackling at that. “Pfft, fair.”

Before picking up, he put on his best impression of a disappointed father he could muster without breaking character.

“Yes?”

Dave’s voice sounded entirely too agitated for prom. Even as disastrous a prom as this would surely become. “Bro, have you seen Jake?”

He stopped, confusion shaking him to his core. “Why would I have seen Jake?”

“God fucking damn it”, Dave said, before his voice got softer, as if he were talking to someone else. “He’s not with him.”

“Dave, what’s going on?”

“Jake never showed up to prom.” Dirk felt his whole body tense as a million scenarios, each worse than the last, ran through his head. His fear must have shown outwardly because Roxy immediately got up from the floor and sat on her legs, looking at him intently. “He left his house before Jade and Jane did but he never arrived, and John says he hasn’t gone back home either. We can’t find him anywhere and Jade’s freaking out because it’s pouring and he could have gotten hurt somewhere. I’m doing my best to hold her back but you know how she is, I swear she can teleport. It would actually be useful in this situation if she could, really, but I don’t think she actually can. I mean you are the one who always says time travel is impossible but we already travel through space so who’s to say-”

“Dave, focus.”

“Right, yeah. Anyway, the point is everyone’s freaked out and we don’t know what to do.”

Sometimes Dirk really hated being the only responsible adult in his friend group. “Listen, you all stay right where you are, you hear me? You drink that awful, most likely spiked punch, dance as much as you can, and have a good time. I’ll handle Jake.”

He could almost hear his own head laughing in his face. Handle Jake. As if he’d ever known how to do _that._

“Are you sure? It’s only been a week since you broke up and-”

“Don’t worry about my drama, worry about yours, Romeo.” He got up from the floor and ran to his room, taking his jacket and grabbing his katana before realizing the only danger Jake was in was probably his own stupidity and deciding that he didn’t need a weapon for that. Dave sighed.

“Yeah, I- uh… Yeah, I should do that. Man, this is a mess. Never let me make a decision by myself ever again.” Dirk could have laughed if he wasn’t on his way to having a full mental breakdown.

“If you play your cards right, maybe Karkat will make them for you from now on.”

“Man, here’s hoping.” Something akin to the sound of a glass smashing against the floor reached Dirk from the speakers, followed by a loud string of expletives he couldn’t make out. “God damn it, Rose, what are you doing? Sorry, bro, I gotta go. Talk to you later.”

“Love y-” 

He was interrupted by the sound that signaled the call had been disconnected and huffed a puff of air before turning towards Roxy, who had walked over to the front door and was waiting with his shoes in hand.

“Kids these days have no respect,” he said, trying for lighthearted but sounding more stressed out than anything. Roxy laughed softly anyway, so he would count that as a win.

“So, what’s wrong with Jake?” She was going for neutral but he could hear the same worry he was feeling reflected in her tone.

“Apparently he’s disappeared without a trace, and everyone and their mother is freaking out about it. Leave it to Jake English to be the center of the drama even today of all days,” is what he said. What he didn’t tell Roxy was that he wasn’t that surprised about that when Jake was also the center of his thoughts every other day.

“Well, you were the one dating him, so what does that say about-”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll finish you.”

She grinned a little before sobering up again. “Do you want me to go with you?”

“No. Stay here in case the kids need anything.”

“Okay, be careful.” 

“I will.”

Dirk intended to keep that promise. What he couldn’t promise was that he wouldn’t kill Jake once he found him but, oh, well. That was a worry for future Dirk.

Current Dirk had an idiot to find.

\---

Dirk thought it was kind of insulting that he had to brave the pouring outdoors only to find Jake within the following twenty minutes. He didn’t know if the situation said more about Jake’s predictability or his own ability to know where Jake was at all times; all he knew is he found him at the first place he looked. The park where they had their first kiss.

Now if Dirk hadn’t been freaking out and very much experiencing a mental breakdown, he could have appreciated the irony of the situation. He would have even started the incredibly awkward conversation he was about to engage in with a joke about it, which he would have instantly regretted. As it was though, he could hardly find the words.

Jake was leaning against a big tree that stood apart from the path enough that he probably wouldn’t have found him if he didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. Their initials were carved somewhere on that tree, product of an extremely embarrassing escapade that ended with Roxy almost calling the police worried he’d been murdered and Dirk smiling stupidly against his pillow for the rest of the night.

He heard what sounded suspiciously like Rose’s voice, telling him that remembering all these moments would only make the situation harder. He put it aside though, deciding that there was no use berating himself for something he couldn’t control. His thoughts had been plagued with the green eyes that were currently looking back at him in confusion for a long time, and he didn’t think they’d stop any time soon.

He didn’t think they _could_ ever stop.

“What are you doing here?” His voice sounded muffled, probably because of the sheer amount of rain falling on his face and in the space between them. Jake was still wearing the suit he had taken to prom and it was so thoroughly drenched that Dirk gave himself a second to be thankful that he’d convinced Jake to buy the tuxedo and not rent it like he’d originally planned, otherwise he’d never be getting his deposit back.

A traitorous voice in his head that for once didn’t sound like anyone else told him that he still looked beautiful, even fully soaked in an overpriced suit. His personality might be parts of everyone he’d ever loved, but loving Jake was all him. It might have been the only true part of him.

Well, that and his anger, but that was probably related.

“What am I doing here? What are _you_ doing here?” he said, sounding far more agitated than he had intended but still less stressed than he felt.

He saw more than heard Jake scoff and roll his eyes. “Well, I hardly believe that’s any of your business, mate.”

“Not my... Okay, you know what? Fine. Wanna know what I’m doing here?” He could feel himself getting angrier by the second and he’d normally be deeply upset with himself over it but all that was going through his mind was _how dare he?_ “I’m here because _you_ didn’t show up to prom, and your sister started freaking out and my brother had to call me to ask me if i’d seen you even _though_ I stayed home precisely to avoid you, so I had to go out and look for you anyway, because it’s Jake English’s world and we’re all just living in it.”

“Don’t do that.”

He blinked. “Do what?”

“That! Act like I’m some… stupid, self-absorbed idiot who never cares about anyone else and needs people to save him all the time.” 

Unbelievable.

“Well, if that isn’t an accurate assessment of someone who dumps their boyfriend in front of the entire school and then forces him to look for him in the middle of the worst storm of the year, then, pray tell, what is?”

“I didn’t force you to look for me! I’ve never asked you to save me!” The only part about the situation that gave Dirk some degree of satisfaction was seeing Jake’s dumb optimistic facade breaking, if only because he was angry-

“Well, tough luck, because I am! And I’m gonna keep doing it!”

“Why?!”

“Because I love you, you colossal fool!”

Dirk couldn’t say he was particularly fond of rain, but he was certainly glad for it now, because he didn’t think even his shades could hide the tears running down his face. He still made a point to turn around to try to pull himself together before Jake could figure it out, though.

“Dirk…”

“Shut up!” _There goes that plan,_ he thought when he heard how cracked his own voice sounded. “Did you know how worried I was?”

A cursory glance at Jake’s face told him that he _thought_ he knew, but was actually incredibly off mark. Any other day he probably would have let him get off easy, but he was cold, wet, and upset and he still kind of wanted to punch Jake in his stupid, perfect teeth, so he figured it was a decent compromise.

“Dave called me freaking out because you hadn’t shown and funnily enough my first thought wasn’t that you were in the park, sitting under a tree in the middle of the night, getting soaked for no reason!” He was now looking back at Jake fully, getting ready to menacingly point his finger at him if he tried to argue with him. It’d worked wonderfully with the twins when they were five, he was sure it’d work with Jake at eighteen just as well. “I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere!”

“Well, I wasn’t!”

“I can see that!”

A silence fell upon them just as the sky stopped pouring, neither of them noticing as they were too busy avoiding each other’s eyes and presumably trying to figure out what to say. 

“Listen-”

“I’m-”

They both cringed slightly at their attempt before Dirk finally spoke. “You first.”

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I... didn’t mean to worry you or make you come all this way to bring me home.”

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, but he was trying very hard to calm down his frying nerves, and keeping the blame train running would not help at all. “I don’t think I could avoid worrying about you, anyway.”

If Dirk was a lesser man, he could have convinced himself that Jake smiled a little at that. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t. “So… what were you going to say?”

“I just…,” he said, probably looking as uncomfortable as he felt. _Here it comes._ “Look, what we had… It was good while it lasted. And now it’s over and… yeah, I’m still in love with you, I won’t lie about that.”

He wanted to berate himself for that last admission, since the last thing he wanted was to make Jake uncomfortable, but he thought if he stopped speaking he might never get it out, so he forced himself to continue. “But we… we used to be friends and… we can’t let our drama get in the way of that. Our friends don’t deserve it, and neither do we.” 

He thought about Roxy, who had barely gotten two hours of sleep all week because she’d been staying up late every night trying to make him feel better. He thought about Jane, who had stuck to him every day during school to glare at anyone who dared approach him with an insensitive comment. He thought about Jade’s very earnest offer to kick Jake’s ass and Dave’s awkward attempts at being helpful. 

He thought about Jake, alone in the middle of a storm during prom night. And himself, standing right in front of him trying to make it right.

“So… Can we just… put this all behind us and be friends again?”

He could already see it. Jake, putting his arm around him and telling him yes, they could absolutely do that. Himself, blushing and trying to hide it, forced to hide his feelings for the rest of time. _It’d be a small price to pay_ , he thought.

He was so caught up in his mental scenario that he almost missed Jake’s answer. “No.”

“What?"

“I don’t… I can’t be friends with you, Dirk.”

“Oh.”

Dirk had a pretty substantial record of not crying and he’d already cried once tonight, but he was pretty sure he could cry again. At least Roxy would get her much desired comforting session/movie night. But that could wait until he was home and out of the woods. Both physical and metaphorical. 

He was trying to come up with some kind of response that wouldn’t betray his feelings when Jake spoke up again.

“It just seems so pointless to be just friends when I feel the same.”

Dirk felt like he was going insane.

“What did you just say?”

“I said I feel the same way.” Jake had the audacity to smile while he said that, as if there was some sort of joke between them that Dirk was supposed to understand. Well, he didn’t, thank you very much.

“But… you broke up with me. Last week.” He was so genuinely confused he was starting to believe maybe he’d imagined the whole thing. Had he imagined their relationship too? Were they on the Truman Show? He almost posed that question to Jake before deciding that was stupid and asking something else. “You remember that, right?”

“Yeah, that was… I… Blimey, words are really hard sometimes.” For what it was worth, he didn’t seem to be bullshitting his way out of a conundrum like he usually did. He looked like he was having a genuinely hard time trying to articulate his feelings.

 _Huh._

“I didn’t break up with you because I didn’t love you, I just…”

“You just…?”

“I was worried that _you_ didn’t love me.”

And just like that, all of Dirk’s anger came rushing back. “Okay, that’s ridiculous. If you think I’m gonna fall for that weak ass-”

“See? This is what I’m talking about! Bloody hell, Dirk! You never take anything I say seriously and you’re constantly making fun of me! What am I supposed to think?”

“Well, Roxy makes fun of Jane plenty and you know she’s into her!”

“Yeah, but Jane doesn’t! That’s the point!” Dirk didn’t think he’d ever seen Jake raise his voice as much as he had that day. He was very disappointed to find out that it was actually doing it for him. “What our friends say doesn’t matter if you don’t tell me!”  
  
“Well, I already told you!”

“Yes, now! In the middle of the rain after you thought I had died! Because you are the biggest drama queen I’ve ever met!”

Dirk would argue that that was a gross exaggeration of the truth, but he was also starting to feel kind of bad. He knew Jake would probably berate him if he said it out loud, but he couldn’t help but think that this had turned into yet another point in the ever growing list of Dirk Strider fuck-ups.

“Listen… I need to know what you’re thinking. I know it’s hard for you. Hell, it’s hard for me, too. But if… If you don’t tell me things, then I won’t know, and what happened last week will keep happening.”

“Okay…”

He wondered what happened now. Were they back together? Is that a thing they could actually do without talking about it? Should they talk about it? Not for the first time, Dirk wished relationships were as easy to break and put back together as the robots he built for fun in his spare time.

“Hey, Dirk?” Jake’s question took him right out of his freak out, and he realized he’d gotten pretty close and he had to look up at him now.  
  
“Yes?”

If there was something Dirk hadn’t anticipated when he left his house to look for Jake is that he’d get a kiss out of it. But there they were, lips locked in a new yet familiar touch. They hadn’t forgotten how to work together in the last week, they couldn’t, but it was still wet and awkward and wonderful. Dirk was still reeling and hyperventilating a little bit because if Jake could taste the salt he’d know he’d been crying but at the same time he fought that he couldn’t care less.

Funny how love works.

All too soon it was over, and they were once again two idiots standing in a park, shivering as their soaked clothes stuck to their skin. 

“What was that for?”

“That… was for being an idiot.” A lazy smile spread across his face before turning in the grossest, most enamored look he’d ever received. Dirk couldn’t get enough of it. “And because I’m desperately in love with you.”

He was most definitely blushing now. “And you call _me_ a drama queen.”

It looked like Jake was fully ready for an encore, but Dirk’s phone buzzed in his pocket, startling them both. Jake took his left hand and squeezed it comfortingly as Dirk dug his phone out and read through his notifications.

“It’s Roxy. Apparently, our predictions were correct and there _are_ , in fact, several moping and crying children at home right now.”

“Yikes.” Jake’s grimace perfectly captured how Dirk felt about the entire situation he had going on at home. “Does… that mean you have to go?”

He probably did. There was a lot that had gone wrong that night, according to Roxy’s texts, and he could already see his life devolving into moping and pizza central for the foreseeable future.

“This isn’t over,” he said, pointing accusingly with his finger.

But Roxy had said that he got to have his own life now. He could be a little selfish for once.

“But no,” he answered, wrapping his arms around Jake’s neck and bringing him closer. “Not yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> can all of you tell that i google 'british expressions' every time i write jake?
> 
> honestly cant believe i finally write something for this fandom and its not davekat when thats like... my entire brand
> 
> for real though, this was super fun to write and part of a little thing my friend and i are doing where we send each other prompts along with characters and then we review each other's works. my prompt for this piece was 'not yet' with dirkjake, so... here it is! weve written a couple more of these and they'll be added onto the 'of words, birds, and capitalism.' series, so look out for those.
> 
> i hope you guys have enjoyed this and feel free head on to twitter or tumblr to Chat™. have a nice day/night!


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